Take number one: Being a Commanders fan is not fun. The team has been irrelevant for 30 years and ownership was an embarrassment. The team gets sold, they draft a quarterback who appears to be a generational talent and jump out to a 7-2 record, giving us something we have not had since the early 1990s … hope. And then they lose two straight, albeit to two playoff caliber teams, and you think, that’s ok, Dallas is coming to town, they stink, total get right game. Well. And to add insult to injury, you wake up the next morning and every sports talking head is slobbering the equally hated Eagles and you just want to stick your head in the oven.
Take number two: The old man, get off my lawn side of me is enjoying the resurgence of running backs. The game I watched as a child and teen is back, if only for one year. The best teams have solid running games and offensive lines that maul defenses. Not one but two runners may top 2,000 yards and suddenly everything old is new again. Kudos to Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley, to David Montgomery and Jhymeer Gibbs, Josh Jacobs, and the rest of the undervalued running backs making the game look like 1977 again.
Take number three: Is there a worse team to root for than the Dolphins? When your quarterback is healthy, you’re at worst a playoff team and at best a Super Bowl contender but the problem is the next time he takes a hit to the head, his career might be over and you have no back up plan if that happens. If you root for a team like the Giants or Raiders, you know your team is tanking and will try to reset next year but the Dolphins are in a sort of purgatory where they are totally reliant on this one player whose career could end tomorrow. Oh, and you can't win a game when the temperature is below 40 degrees. Seems like a problem!
Take number four: The Ravens are simultaneously the most enjoyable and most frustrating team in the league to watch. They can march into a game against an up and coming team like the Chargers, have Lamar do Lamar things, a couple of highlight quality plays literally no one else can make, Derrick Henry steamroll people, and their defense play well enough and you think, “no one can beat this team, they are a thing of beauty” not one week after they looked inept and impotent against the Steelers and you think “what is wrong with this team?” In the end, the sloppy play (the Ravens get penalized way too much), uneven defense, and questionably play calling in big games will likely result in their season ending short of the Super Bowl and it will be a shame.
Take number five: The other side of the Ravens coin is Kansas City. They take their first loss of the season and are outplayed in Buffalo and then play with their food in Carolina, let an inferior team hang around for the entire game, and then scratch out a win. Impossible to make heads or tails of this team, whether they are just using the regular season to figure out what works best in the playoffs or if the defense is regressing or the offense is stuck. Strangest 10-1 team in recent memory.
Take number six: The Bears keep finding new ways to lose and their fan base must be furious. They went into their bye week 4-2 and then it all fell apart. The Hail Mary loss to Washington followed by two awful losses to Arizona and New England where the team did not look competitive, somewhere in there the offensive coordinator gets fired and then they lose a game to their oldest rival on a blocked field goal and then lose their next game to another division rival after coming back to tie the game in the last two minutes. That great start to the season is now long forgotten. 4-7 with a trip to Detroit to play the best team in the NFC on a short week knowing your whole coaching staff is likely out the door at season’s end.
Take number seven: The NFC South and NFC West are the poster children for what the powers that be in the NFL want - parity. Both of these divisions are perfectly mediocre and each division winner will likely not be known until the final week of the season. Competitive? Yes. Entertaining? Not so much (Baker’s weird DeVito homage notwithstanding).
Take number eight: Have you heard about the team that has won six of their last seven, their only loss being to the 10-1 Lions? No. It’s Green Bay. Keep an eye on them.
Take number nine: If someone needs 17 games to break a record that was set in 16 games, it is not a record. I will die on this hill. Statistics and records play such a big role in how sports are covered and yet, to use one example, if Saquon Barkley needs an additional game to break Eric Dickerson’s record, it, does not count, sorry. Start keeping records based on the number of games that were played, Rewrite the record books so there are season leaders for when the league played 12 games, 14 games, 16 games, and now, 17 games.
Take number ten: I was trying to think back to the last time I celebrated a traditional, sit-at-the-family-table Thanksgiving and I came up with 2008. It can be isolating to be estranged from your family and losing another one to divorce, but on the flip side, no travel drama, no talk of politics at dinner, and I can sit at home with a pizza the size of a wagon wheel and watch football all day without anyone yelling at me.
No comments:
Post a Comment